American Protest Literature

December 23rd, 2019

Research proposal

1. Thesis – for this project, I have chosen to write over the protest culture movements that have shaped the cultural values of or country, America. According to the writer T.V. Reed, it is the protests that have shaped the culture of the nation and different factors like civil right movements by African American, the American Indian Movement, through media, movies, music and other such forms that discusses the role of women and how they are suppressed, and how through graphical means like posters, banners, etc., the cultural movement of protest is promoted. Also, in this project, the role of protest at the global level is discussed and evaluated.

2. Paragraphs – through the project, different paragraphs and settings will be discussed how the protest shaped the culture and what these social, political and economics inspired movements caused the change in the cultural perspective of the mind of the people. Different factors like poems and film, ethnicity and academic culture; how everything is related to culture and how culture is directly influenced by the protest. Culture was a prime ‘instrument’ of change for the movement, not some decorative, ‘expressive’ addition” (p. 79). In the supporting paragraphs, the individual ideas will be discussed and then, the evaluation will be done based on their commitment in the face of politics of form, politics of influence, politics of appropriation and politics of memory. The main reference is taken from the book by TV Reed where the writer has defined the art of protest through different movements and in different chapters.

3. Supporting paragraph 1 – in the first chapter, the influence of protest is observed trough music and how the African American Civil Rights movements were influenced by the songs that depicted the protest. The black soulful music along with their religious musical traditions, that time saw a protest in the form of freedom songs and it was well supported by those who understood the meaning of the songs. Then, the political drama by the Black Panther Party raised many eyebrows by changing the view of political theatrics and opening the eye of the world to a new cultural perspective of politics.

4. Supporting paragraph 2 – the women powered movement that was influenced by the soulful poetry, is something that has not gone unheard. Different topics related to women such as class, sexuality, nationality, race, etc. were discussed and attention was diverted to these very crucial issues as they have been gone unnoticed before. All due to the non-impressive movement of protest.

5. Supporting paragraph 3 – then, the movement of murals come along. Something that was not done before on such a huge level, in which the murals showing the political and cultural scenario and demanding the changing as these efforts were made to bring justice to the Mexicans.

6. Supporting paragraph 4 – furthermore in the book, the movement of the native Americans is discussed how they established and worked on the American Indian movement, the “most famous and infamous native organization of the red power era” (p. 129). The purpose was to bring justice to the natives and give them their due rights but the story was distributed in a slightly different matter and it would have all gone to waste if the media and entertainment did not step in, at the right time.

7. Supporting paragraph 5 – other important movements along with the timeline such as movements to make realize the need to fight the AIDS, the pressure of academic course outline and how it can influence the protest culture by offering productive eco-system between the academic literary system and cultural study and the role of protest in it. Then comes the movement that is taken to the global level and the world becomes a part of something that influences variable changes in the culture. Each chapter shows the influence of different elements in the way of protest and how the world has been affected by the protest culture.

8. Conclusion – it has been observed that from the time of the mid-90s and till the present age of the internet where the cultural values have changed remarkably, the changes are all due to the protests that have happened with the help of different factors. If it wasn't due to these historical events, the changes would not have occurred and the shape of the culture and the world would have been something different.

9. Bibliography –

Work Cited

Clark, Toby. Art and propaganda in the twentieth century: the political image in the age of mass culture. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.

Jasper, James M. The art of moral protest: Culture, biography, and creativity in social movements. University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Kaufmann, Laurel Jeanne. "Creation of an identity: American Indian protest art." (1993).

Reed, Thomas Vernon. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Present. U of Minnesota Press, 2019.